Ripples
by Cairnsy
Summary: There are nights when Kaname dreams of a world where youkai aren't simply ripples on his bedroom ceiling. Tanuma centric.


**Summary:** There are nights when Kaname dreams of a world where youkai aren't simply ripples on his bedroom ceiling. Tanuma centric.**  
Notes:** This was my Yuletide entry for the year. I was a little nervous when I got my assignment, as a Tanuma centric request wasn't at all what I was expecting and I really wasn't sure that I could do his character justice. I went through several different plot scenarios before I settled on this one, the problem with my first couple of attempts was that while Tanuma was technically the main character in those ideas, the fics were really more about characters I favored, which was unfair.

Big thanks to the wonderful Ann(lotsofnumbers) for her fabulous and insanely quick beta job!

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**Ripples**

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There are nights when Kaname dreams of a world where youkai aren't simply ripples on his bedroom ceiling. He wonders what it would be like if Natsume's world didn't merely ghost at the corner of his consciousness, fading out when the weather becomes cooler and the nights longer, taking on a slight sharpness when the sun shines off them just so.

Sometimes, when his illness strikes and brings a darkness - a sharpness - all its own, he thinks maybe he can even hear some of the youkai whisper temptations in his ears, promising strength, salvation or utopia if he only offers up in return a couple of his fingers, three of or four years of his life right towards the end, his very soul.

His first doctor says that it is only the side effects of his medication that make him see the strange figure in the corner of his room, and his dosage is promptly changed to something a little less powerful. Kaname is only seven at the time and so he believes all the big words proclaimed by intimidating men in starched white coats, but it is at that point that his father becomes convinced that youkai are responsible for his son's failing health. His father doesn't see ripples or fragments of ghosts that come and go with the seasons or how ill Kaname is, but he does see Kaname's waning vitality and shallow cheeks.

When Kaname is really sick, so truly unwell that he's maybe seeing the world of the spirits more clearly because his own is fading fast, all his father sees are thick white tubes and stark hospital rooms, and so he doesn't need ripples on ceilings or ghosts at the edge of his consciousness. His mother is less convinced and tells her husband so, reminding him that youkai spells are unlikely to be influenced by medication and hospital stays, and Kaname always gets better when treated by professionals that hold degrees instead of staffs: they both do.

When his mother dies, ripped away from them by the same illness that causes Kaname to skip a week off school and have to wear extra scarves in winter, his father doesn't say anything about youkai to Kaname; he simply holds him in a endless hug that is so tight that Kaname can feel each of his father's tremors running through him as if they are his own. But that night, long after Kaname is supposed to be in bed, he spies his father drawing a shaky, amateur circle in their backyard from his bedroom window. Kaname is only eight, but he still knows there is something incredibly private about what his father is doing, and so he crouches low and barely peaks over the edge of the window frame. After the circle is done – and Kaname now knows after having seen Toki's complex drawings that his father's would have been worthless – his father folds down onto his knees in the center, his head bowed just slightly towards his chest.

And then, his father starts cursing. Kaname can't hear the words nor can he read lips, but there is something about the way his father's mouth is curled into something hard and angry and the tension in his shoulders that gives it away. Kaname doesn't have any anger of his own, just a numbness that he doesn't quite want to push through. But his father's anger is real and raw, and Kaname clings to it as his father had clung to him earlier, straining forward in an attempt to catch some of the righteous damnation his father is surely bringing down on-

"Please ... he is …. only … son … take … only …"

Kaname realizes then, as the broken pleas filter up on the early winter winds and through the tired worn net webbing of his curtains, that it isn't anger or tension that rocks his father, but a quiet anguish that saps from him all his strength and courage. As Kaname grows up, from a child into a boy and then into something that will vaguely one day resemble an adult, he finds himself drawn back into this particular memory more so than any of the others from his childhood. The image of his father, mouth held tight in anguish, and pale skin stretched over his clenched fists has a staying power that Kaname can't ever fully explain.

Kaname likes to think that he caught in the flickering candle light the vague outlines of small, insignificant youkai mournfully trying to offer his father support from the outer edges of his circle. In his more cynical moments, when not having a mother cuts so deep and hurts so much that he has to lock away those feelings into a small, uniform box of politeness and warmth, he thinks that maybe those flickers in the candlelight were hunting out new prey instead.

The next day they move far away from the city and his father's job as a salary man to a new, tiny town that has a training institute for Buddhist priests.

The Buddhist school gives his father back many things, and the tension that Kaname sees in his shoulders (his eyes, the way he cooks breakfast at exactly 7:35 each morning because that was when his mother prepared it that last morning) slowly starts to drain away as the teachings start to resonate. Some days, when the weather turns and summer brings with it hot winds and warm afternoons, Kaname sits outside the shrine and watches as his father learns the way of peace and forgiveness, and then the higher art of purification. He doesn't quite understand the complex spells and chants, but the quiet sense of control his father gains for himself allows Kaname a certain amount of peace as well. There is something in the elegant movements and quiet determination that makes the young Kaname feel safe, and the shadows are never quite so close once his father starts bringing his newly learnt bag of tricks home (although his father's circle drawing abilities never really get any better).

Neither of them ever stops missing Kaname's mother, but the hurt becomes less like a trumpet blasting out one endless, dissonant note and instead a quiet serenade that drifts in on the wind.

Kaname isn't entirely sure when the youkai that exist at least partially in his mind morph into something less threatening and vicious than the demons his father defends against. There isn't a particular instant that Kaname is able to draw upon, no moment of startling clarity when the youkai became less the monsters who spirited away his mother and more a distorted kind of constant that is as thrilling as it is familiar. Somehow, as Kaname grows into his illness and is able to control it through his actions as much as being a victim of its sudden onsets, his fear of the shadows gives way to a childish curiosity, and then to an unanticipated commonality that Kaname is still unable to put into words. Their presence is just like the air, the heat of summer, his poor grades in science.

One afternoon, he asks his father tentatively about the nature of youkai. His father has always been indiscriminate when it comes to his dealings with them, and so Kaname is surprised when his father seems almost apologetic in his explanations.

_Youkai, _his father explains, _are neither inherently good nor evil, as both concepts are uniquely human in their construct. Youkai exist on a different plane and with different rules to humans, but their continued existence requires a certain level of interaction with humans if their spirituality in this world is to be maintained. It is then,_ his father says and Kaname is enthralled, _that youkai absorb human concepts of emotion and goodness, choosing whether fear or reward will snare them the most worshippers and therefore extend their existence another day, another summer, another century. Other human traits follow as the youkai-human interactions increase: Forgiveness or vengeance, devotion or smug superiority. Youkai are dangerous,_ his father finishes, his voice low and his head dipped almost in reverence,_ in part because they are dangerously human. _

Youkai are also dangerous, Kaname knows, because they are dangerously not human as well. Still, that night he leaves a small collection of acorns outside his door. He is not sure if they are a peace offering or an olive branch, but he is ridiculously pleased to find them gone the next morning.

The intuitive feeling that the youkai are there never fades, even when Kaname and his father move to a new small town, and then again to another one after that. In some way, their constant presence starves of some of the loneliness that comes with each move, because at least they are a constant even if he is the only one who ever seems to feel their presence.

Everything changes when his father becomes head priest at his own shrine, and Kaname gets both the ripples on his ceiling and the cautious friendship of a quiet boy who sees so much more than Kaname has ever dared dream existed. He can't quite grasp the world that Natsume sees (no matter how much he reaches for it), and at first it is only the fantastical and magical elements that Kaname acknowledges and longs quietly for even when he learns how much that world has damaged his friend.

But sometimes, when Natsume is pressed to the ground by some invisible monster that only he can see, Kaname wonders if he wants youkai to exist in the first place. And Kaname wonders, if perhaps there is a cost that must be paid, two copper coins offered up to the ferryman before Kaname himself can cross over into the world of ripples and invisible enemies and the shadows that crouched in the corner of his hospital room. Natsume has paid a thousand times for his entry into his insular (magical, unique) world, while Kaname has perhaps clung greedily onto one of his coins, offering up only moments of sacrifice that carve deep but only still leave flesh wounds.

It's the sacrifice itself that turns Natsume's world from a hazy, wishful dream into a very real nightmare, Kaname discovers when he is taken over by a youkai that allows him to truly see the youkai world for the first time. The price he pays is the loss of his own body, not to poor health or death but to a youkai with the ability to turn humans into houses perfect for demonic occupation. The youkai he sees are neither inspiring nor mythical but instead terrifying and dark. Natsume's grim determination suddenly makes so much sense that Kaname cannot help but feel horrified for his friend.

Natsume wins the day, and Kaname regains his body and loses the youkai back to the shadows. It is harsh lesson for them both, exposing the differences between their experiences with youkai as it reinforces the similarities. Kaname still wishes privately for more, but now it is tempered by a realism that is a little less selfish.

If the youkai were just a touch more visible, then perhaps he would be able to help Natsume more. If he understood their world better, then maybe when Natsume is dragged down into their politics and magic, there would be more that Kaname could _do._

The rain pelts down, dousing Kaname's ears and plastering his clothes against his skin. Each breath takes in equal parts air and water, and so each exhale is less a puff and more a gurgle.

He runs.

Rain laden branches snap painfully into his face and chest and he stumbles and slides on the wet, crumbling mix of dead leaves and loose clay soil beneath his feet. He breathes, three quarters water and one quarter air, and thinks that he is drowning in his skin, deep in the thick, shadowy arms of a forest that has dragged him into its thicket.

From somewhere deeper within the forest a shrill scream pierces the air, and Kaname suddenly stops caring about the rain, the tightness in his chest, how difficult it is to breathe and the shadows encroaching from the darker corners of his mind. Natsume had told him to stay behind, that these were youkai that were too unrelenting for him to face, that Kaname's cough had taken on a raspy edge that was worrisome in a different way.

Natsume said he would be back hours ago. Natsume said he would be fine.

Kaname doesn't know much about Natsume's world, not really. But this world – the one where friends are important and should be cherished and protected – he lives and breathes.

He half skids, half falls into a clearing, furiously blinking back the rain falling into his eyes and blurring his sight. Once he can see again, he finds a grotesque pantomime playing out before him: Natsume is pinned against the forest floor, struggling and flailing and _gurgling_ beneath an invisible enemy who radiating with a dark intent that even Kaname can feel.

It is enough. Biting down on his bottom lip, he drops his shoulder and charges.

"Tanuma, no!"

He hits something hard and smooth and huge, like a large rock – like a boulder, and all he can think through his anger is that this thing is what is pinning Natsume down. For a second it seems as though his rash actions have achieved nothing, and then the rock (the youkai, the thing) is flung backwards, leaving smashed blades of grass in its wake.

Dazed, Kaname drops down beside Natsume. Natsume looks up at him with a guarded, worried gaze that makes Kaname think how twisted this all is that his friend seems more vulnerable now that the youkai is not crushing him half to death. Kaname doesn't quite have the breath yet to reassure Natsume, he can't quite get air back into his lungs after having collided with the youkai.

And then there is a roar, one so loud and raw that everything else seems to stop existing except for the overwhelming, deafening sound. Kaname sees a flash of light and a streak of something white flash past, and then there is nothing at all as he shoves Natsume down. Nothingness is perhaps not quite the right term, Kaname thinks in a detached way: the eternal moment he finds himself caught in is not so much nothingness as it is an absence of everything. There is no noise, no wet leaves beneath his feet or cloudy, dark sky above his head, no Natsume at his side facing down ghosts instead of youkai.

This absence, some strange part of his mind fills in, is something – an entity all of its own.

Kaname learns in the next moment that it is a precursor for everything. Everything, but mainly pain. A shocked cry falls from his lips as his back flares into fireworks. Someone is muttering quiet, urgent pleas against his hair, and it takes him a moment to realize that it is Natsume, and that they're no longer deep in the forest but far above it. He thinks for a moment that they're floating on clouds, except clouds aren't covered in thick, warm fur.

Kaname blinks, and a tiny smile fades across his lips despite the pain. So this is Natsume's-

This time, the nothingness that crashes down on him is exactly that. Consciousness returns slowly, fading in and out as bells whistle and youkai dance on the inside of his skull to a beat that Kaname thinks he can almost hear if he stops his heart for a moment and forgoes taking in his next breath.

Instead, he mentally forces his way up through a wall of cotton wool, and slowly opens his eyes, as weighed down with weights as they are. The effort exhausts him, but it all worth it when the first thing he sees is his father.

"You shouldn't have been out in that weather," his father says quietly once the doctors have come and gone, and Kaname is awkwardly sitting up in his hospital bed. There is little heat in his father's words. Nobody knows Kaname's own limitations better than he himself does, and his father knows this. When he decides to struggle through those boundaries and grasp desperately for a reserve that is nothing more than a trickle of strength, then he is doing so on terms that solely of his own making.

His father makes no mention of his other wounds even though Kaname thinks that he must know that they have been inflicted by something supernatural. It means that Natsume has somehow explained what happened, but it also suggests that it is perhaps not those injuries that have kept Kaname in the hospital. He clenches his hands into fists beneath his bed cover, frustrated and angry that it is again his own body that has failed him.

"How long have I been asleep?" Kaname asks with trepidation.

"Just under two weeks," his father replies, his smile faltering even as he attempts to keep his reply even. "You, your lungs-" his father's voice breaks, and Kaname knows that it takes all of his willpower to keep his face from crumbling into something desperate and raw. Kaname's breath catches in his throat as the corners of his father's mouth tremble briefly, before thankfully settling into a thin line that smothers away the tremors. It makes the feelings of guilt Kaname has feel less that of a never-ending cavern and more a dark, deep cave that at least has a thin smudge of light somewhere up above for Kaname to stumble towards.

And there is a light. His lungs have been damaged further by being out in the weather it turns out, but not irreversibly so. He'll miss several weeks of school, but not a full term this time. There are scratches on his back and a gash along his side, but at least ... at least Natsume is safe, and this time it isn't his friend who bears the scars of some youkai's rage.

"He should be here soon," his father says, and it is only then that Kaname realizes he has spoken Natsume's name out loud. "He's an interesting boy," he adds cautiously, although a small smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. "Nice, but …. interesting. He's dropped by every day to see how you are doing." Kaname grins despite himself at that, and his father's expression softens. "In fact, he should be-"

"Oh, Tanuma! You're awake!"

There are nights when Kaname dreams of a world where youkai aren't simply ripples on his bedroom ceiling, and there are nights when he dreams that there is nothing there at all. But what he is slowly learning is most important to him is the world that is there when he wakes, and his ability to make ripples here of his own.

Natsume stands hesitantly at his hospital room door, relief warring visibly with a fragile watchfulness.

With a smile, Kaname welcomes him in.


End file.
